Keynote: The M Word - Anna Ossowski - PyLondinium19

hi good evening good evening everyone thank you very much this is the last talk we will have lightning talks but this is the last full talk we will have Anna here for those of you who already been in the panel talk he is an amazing human being and you have discovered if you were not here you will discover it now she was very elastic and she's she is one of the directors in the BSF so we are very very grateful for you to be in here and she has a surprise we don't know what she's going to talk about but it's going to be super good give it with warm welcome to Anna thank you thank you my so my talk is going to be quite serious and very personal so I thought I'd do something fun in the beginning also you all had a really long day you're probably falling asleep so I want to wake you up so yesterday my childhood dream came true I saw the Spice Girls at Wembley Stadium and we're gonna do a little spice girls sing-along I'm serious lorina challenged me she said I wouldn't do it and I said yes I totally will some of you may know Jeff Triplett he's also a fellow director of the Python Software Foundation and we've been annoying him with all the Spice Girls stuff so Lorena is going to record this just for Jeff so please sing really really loud we're going to do this acapella without music but I have the lyrics for you so okay are you ready okay come on yo I'll tell you what I want what I really really want so tell me what you want what you really really want I'll tell you I want what I really really want so tell me what you want what you really really want so tell me what you want what you really want I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna I wanna really really really really big a big guy if you want to be my lover you gotta get with my friends make it last forever friendship never if you want to be my lover you have got to give taking is too easy but that's the way D yeah thank you for being crazy enough to do this with me you probably think I'm totally crazy but that's okay all right so this is going to be a bit of a weird transition but yeah I'm going to talk about something really deeply personal and there are some stuff in here that I've never even told told my family so I have one ask of you be kind if there's if you have nothing important if you have nothing kind to say then please don't say it so yeah just be kind to keep that in mind so hi I'm Anna a lot of you may know what I do in the Python Software Foundation or what I do for work what I do in my free time bad hey I'm mentally ill and that is something that a lot of you don't know about me I started talking about it really opened me a little while ago but I didn't talk about this topic for a really really long time so I'm here to talk to you about the M word and a lot of people have asked me today what are you going to talk about and I said I'm not telling you because I didn't want to like keep it a secret but I was also really nerve I'm really nervous to give this talk and I came up with a title the M word before Lloyd's ban came up with the ads like you might have seen the ads that say the M word as in money we're going to talk today about the M word as a mental illness before I start I do have to give a trigger warning so this talk is going to be very serious and I'm going to talk about things like depression anxiety self-harm and suicidal thoughts if any of this triggers any negative emotions in you or you don't want to hear about it please leave the room right now or at any point during this talk I don't want to make you feel bad I don't want to cause any negative feelings in you I won't be offended I promise I just want you to be okay so please leave at any time if you need to I also want to give a disclaimer I'm not a doctor I'm in no way a mental health professional I'm a trained and therapy or psychology or medicine at all I'm just someone who struggles and who has struggled for a really long time so what I'm doing here is not giving any medical advice I'm just sharing my story for a start I want to give some numbers every seven years there is a mental health survey done in England and this last survey was to have done in 2016 and I took some of the results and put them up on slides one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year one in six people report experiencing a mental health problem in any given week one in five people have had suicidal thoughts one in 15 people have attempted suicide look around you I don't know how many we are in this room at one in 15 there's at least a couple of people here who might have attempted suicide I thought about suicide and you exactly how I would do it think about those numbers and this is my story so I suffer from something called depression I pulled up the definition by the NHS the National Health Services and it says that the symptoms of depression can be complex and vary widely between people but as a general rule if you're depressed you feel sad hopeless and lose interest in things you used to enjoy the symptoms persist for weeks or months and are bad enough to interfere with your work social life and family life depression is very different for everyone there is manic depression there's what I call regular depression again I'm not a doctor the depression that I have is exactly as it's described here like feelings of sadness I can't do anything everything seems really hard whereas manic depression is kind of more up and down but it's very personal it's very different for everyone I also suffer some from something called anxiety anxiety anxiety is the feeling of unease such as worry or fear that can be mild or severe everyone has feelings of anxiety at some point in their life but some people find it hard to control their worries their feelings of anxiety are more constant and can often affect their daily lives I do want to point out that anxiety is not just fear it's much much much deeper and it's actually super crippling like I have this thing my anxiety centers around losing people and I get in these thought loops and I worry about my mom having an a car accident and then I'm convinced that she's dying and then I call her several times and it's this thought loop that I cannot get out of until my mom picks up the phone if you think about this it's super crippling because your mind is spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and it's also really exhausting for your body for me anxiety is this weird feeling in my stomach that will not go away so for a long time my world looked like this my world was really really really dark I was always a child who worried a lot and I was always someone who was used to being successful in high school and after high school I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life my parents my parents dream for me and it still is a dream as to as for both for me to become a teacher for the longest time my grandma bless her heart she's in heaven now but she would clip out these like articles about teaching and she would tell me how good I am but I knew that it's nothing that I wanted to do so I moved away I went to university three hours away from home I also had a pretty bad relationship back then about I didn't realize for a long time that it wasn't good for me and I started developing this fear of losing people it was my first time living away from home I failed my first university exams something that I wasn't used to because I was blessed with a lot of success in high school I would go home every weekend I miss my boyfriend I missed my mom I wasn't making friends at the University and all of that didn't help so in the end I had to move back home because I was just sitting in my flat in a city called Mannheim in Germany and I was crying and like calling my mom and I had these thought loops and I didn't know what was going on truly back then I didn't know that I was experiencing anxiety because I had no idea what this feeling was I couldn't put a name to it so I moved back home I started therapy and mag dance therapy really saved my life what I did back then is I also cut my arms it's something I'm not proud of my boyfriend back then he had a way of making me feel guilty about all sorts of things and I had a lot of pain inside of me pain that I didn't know how to deal with and in a weird way cutting myself made that pain better so actually inflicting pain on myself made it better to feel that pain inside of me my mom doesn't know that I cut my arms my family doesn't know that I'm getting emotional here because it's a very emotional topic I'm not I'm not proud of it I'm also not ashamed of it I admit it because I think it's important to admit I haven't done it in a long time but I do get tattoos now because honestly I still like the pain maybe I'm a little bit [ __ ] up but I also want to remind myself to never do this again and I haven't done it since then I had suicidal thoughts I knew exactly where I would crash my car on the highway every day I would drive to University and back home and I knew that exact spot where I would crash my car sometimes when my anxiety got really bad at night and I couldn't sleep I would take drives and I would ponder should I do it should I not do it but I had it exactly planned out I didn't do it that's when I'm still here thank God I somehow made it through that phase I was about 22 23 I'm now 29 I made it through that face but I was never fine I didn't live I kind of existed I managed to work more or less I managed to have some relationships I managed to have some connections I used to have jobs where I could work from home so I had like a really messed-up schedule I would sleep all day and be up all night I didn't want to be up I didn't want to face reality at one point I lost my job not because of mental health reasons but for something else and I was so ashamed to admit it I was still living at home back then that I just locked myself in my room for two or three months I'm not kidding you I was sitting in this dark room I couldn't stand the light I didn't want to be around my family I would only leave my room at night to eat or to go to the bathroom so that was my life I tried to sleep as much as I could because I didn't want to face reality or sometimes watch youtube videos but as I said I was kind of existing and maybe hoping that I would die magically my family thought that I was weird or lazy but they never thought that anything else was really wrong with me and my mom's a nurse I'm not blaming her here I just think that she honestly didn't know what was wrong with me or how to help me my mom is someone who's very good with physical pain but she's not as good with emotional pain and I remember even texting her one day and saying mom I really need help she did respond but she didn't know how to help me it started getting worse again in the beginning of 2018 I was dealing with another breakup I had rock-bottom small things like taking a shower or making myself something to eat seemed impossible I just couldn't do it it wasn't that I was lazy I literally physically couldn't do it it was a challenge for me to even put a pizza in the oven or I wouldn't shower for like two weeks sorry that sounds disgusting but I just couldn't I would cry randomly I had these thought that got really bad and it affected my work it affected my family life it affected my social life I broke down crying and a team meeting and I couldn't really communicate what was wrong with me and then I broke down in front of a friend her name is Melanie Crutchfield she's also super involved in the Python community in the US and she shared her story with me so she was vulnerable with me which enabled me to be vulnerable with her and she told me you know Anna I really really need help and so I went back home from San Diego to Germany and Melanie kept lovingly sending me messages checking on me and asking if I had gone to see a psychiatrist if I had made that appointment and I did so in Germany our health system is pretty good if you have mental health issues you are legally allowed to see a psychiatrist within four weeks they have to give you an appointment so I went to see a pet psychiatrist she did a first evaluation diagnosed me again with depression and anxiety and I also had symptoms like light sensitivity or sound sensitivity like when people were eating around me it sounded so amplified in my head I couldn't stand it or I also couldn't stand being in the daylight and so the psychiatrist told me that she thought there was a chemical imbalance in my brain going on and she actually recommended medication this time the first time it had gone to scene to see a therapist they did not recommend medication so I started taking a medicine called sertraline which is a really common antidepressant my GP here in the UK prescribes it to me I was really lucky because the med first met that hour I had worked for me I just had to play with the dosage a little bit I went from 50 milligrams to 75 and I'm now at a hundred and I have taken 100 milligrams for a year but I know there are a lot of people who have to try several medications or even some people who cannot take medications because they cause several side effects or they just don't work for them so I'm very very lucky I'm a really big proponent of medication I have a thyroid illness so I've been taking medication for my thyroid since I was 14 years old my friend Melanie always says if you have high blood pressure there's like no question yes you're going to take medicine but there's still such a stigma around taking medication because your brain needs it and I was one of those people I was scared for a long time I didn't want to be that person I didn't want to be an addict I just didn't want to do it I thought maybe my all my issues will go away magically disappear and I could do it but the truth is there is a chemical imbalance in my and my brain needs these pills to function took a pill this morning I function like a normal person after a few weeks of taking the meds and this might sound really cheesy but it really was like that I uncovered that life really can be pretty good it was like this dark veil was lifted for my face and don't get me wrong medication alone wasn't enough medication doesn't solve your problems I made a lot of lifestyle changes I worked really hard on myself I got rid of toxic people in my life it's not easy I worked on developing better habits I moved to London I worked on leaving the house every day I'll now leave the house every single day and that's such a huge success for me because I was someone who couldn't I would sit in my room for three months so celebrating little successes and I'm actually really proud of that and I eventually started therapy in January which has been helping me a ton I'm really lucky that I have a private health insurance through my work which covers mental health services so I see a wonderful therapist here in London and we do something called schema therapy schema therapy I don't know if you've heard it heard of it but it looks at certain patterns in your life and it tries to uncover why why they always repeat themselves and then we try on chain we try to work on changing these patterns for me there's something that I deal with it's called emotional deprivation which means that my parents didn't really give me the attention that I would have needed as a child not to blame them again maybe they didn't know better they had to work etc but it leads to me ending up in relationships with people who are not good for me so that's one thing that we deal with most days I'm fine now but I have some really bad days still the truth is that mental illness never goes away it's I call it like this friend you don't want to have but you have to be friends with it because you can't hate that part of yourself your whole life it's just it's not just something like the cold or flu that will go away after two weeks this is gonna stick with me throughout my whole life and there's gonna be phases where it's going to be better and phases where it's going to be worse so I'm still working on accepting this part of me because I'm a perfectionist I am a high goal getter and I don't like having this flaw what you see here is a quote by one of my favorite people one of my heroes Nelson Mandela actually there's a statue of him on the South Bank which has this quote on it if you're when I go see it I walk by it sometimes on a Friday after work and it makes me smile his struggle was the fight against the part how it's a totally different thing I don't want to compare my struggle with his but the point is that all of us struggle and we need to somehow deal with these struggles we sometimes think that there's perfect people there life seems so perfect on social media on Instagram on Twitter but they're not there's something wrong with their lives too and they struggle - life is not easy but I do believe that it really can be a beautiful struggle if you try to make it that way if I want you I want you to take one thing away from this talk no matter how much you're struggling no matter how dark your world or the world of a loved one might seem right now there's hope and there's help it can get better here's how you can get help these are UK resources mostly you can call the n2 NHS mental health services call your GP there are some other numbers you can call if nothing else talk to someone you trust or even talk to a stranger but talk please keep in mind that getting help is not a weakness it's a sign of strength asking for help is actually really damn hard so if you're struggling please do me a favor and reach out to someone anyone there's anonymous places where you can chat with people online message someone on Twitter reach out to someone for a long time I thought that I wasn't suffering enough that it wasn't too bad it would go away I would be able to help myself I was so ashamed there were all these lies that I kept telling myself and I was suffering in silence for 10 years I'm now 29 it started when I was 19 10 years that's the really long time that I and I could have gotten help sooner and there are some people who struggle that long and they don't make it they commit suicide or something happens and they're not with us anymore this is something that I saw and clapping on my way to the two but says vulnerability unites us in life it's all about real connections it's all about being vulnerable and being very vulnerable with your head now in a room of a hundred people or so I encourage you to be more vulnerable I promise it's worth at vulnerability as a way to make friends it's a way to make real human collections a connections people don't associate with perfect they associated with flawed so if you share a flow about you you can maybe expect or hope that someone else will share their flaws with you as well I also remember that you don't have to suffer this was something that Carroll willing a friend a dear friend from the Python community once told me and I literally have it written down in my Trello which was which is what I used as my personal calendar and I look at it every day you don't have to suffer as I said I thought that I wasn't deserving of help that it wasn't bad enough but you don't have to suffer so if you just in the slightest thing that you might need help there might be something wrong with you or you're not feeling well please do get help and just double check with your GP they won't make you feel ridiculous they won't shame you or anything just do go out and try to get help and I promise that every single one in this room is struggling with something you're not alone this is some of my favorite resources I will tweet out these slides after my talk so hope for the day is an organization in the u.s. that deals with mental health have a few of these bracelets here they would like to give to some of you they say it's okay to not be okay have hope so if you like one please come see me there it's an awesome organization and they're anthologies of whole podcast by my friend Rico soft ski we have the same last name but we're not related self-care detect Twitter account breaking taboo Instagram created positivity Trello board this is something where I collect nice things that people have said to me and I collect them in a Trello board and I look at it on a rainy day when I need some motivation I wrote a blog post about it also send someone an open-source happiness package every Friday I send out between three and fret happiness packets it's a great way to brighten someone else's day and it's a great way to make yourself feel happy by doing something nice for someone else I [Applause] want you to write this down make a note on your phone put a sticky note on your laptop write it on your monitor put it somewhere where you see it every day and do me a favor and actually read it every single day until you believe it because it's true and now repeat after me I am appreciated and I am enough I matter I am not alone please do actually write it down it helps me I have this as my email signature so I'm forced to see it every time I see an email and people actually sometimes give me feedback that they like seeing it so yeah one of my favorite quotes is that in a world where you can be anything be kind Mariana asked on the panel we just had what does the world need more if I didn't want to be cheesy but I think it's kindness and there's never enough client 'no sin the world and also this is something that I'm still learning that I'm struggling with is that no one is an [ __ ] for no reason so yeah it's true no one is a bad person just because they were born bad no one is born bad life circumstances have made them this way so give everyone the kindness they deserve they might actually be struggling with something that you don't know about so this is all I have for you today I won't be doing a Q&A on stage because this is super personal and I'm still nervous but I will be around after this talk I might be around tomorrow morning I'm not sure yet but you can also tweet me my Twitter at OSS no.16 I'm always happy to chat and answer questions thank you for listening to me and thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable with you [Applause] here [Applause] thank you [Applause] you